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Dodgy government deals

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Itchy
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PostPosted: 22:02 - 28 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
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Why are Gov.plc not investing some of the £30BN they are paying a French company as a bribe, to produce our own energy?


There was a nuclear engineer on here Titz I think (he's before your time) he used to serenade us with his guitar solos. He pretty much said that there simply weren't enough UK trained engineers to do it.

Plus the pay wasn't as good as in other nations where he could triple or quadruple the pay. So the engineers that were here simply went to get a better deal elsewhere.

So really the skills aren't here.


Long term thinking would be to train up some engineers. The problem is the UK government is fairly short termist and for those engineers to be in a position to build new plants it would take 10+ years to get to that stage even then you can't prevent them from leaving once they get qualified.


A similar thing happened with miners companies in other nations offered them more money so they took it. So even if you wanted to go back to coal and reopen them there would be few people in the UK with the know how to do it.


Oh and giving a higher price for electricity keeps the 30bn off the government debt books too.
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Itchy
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PostPosted: 22:32 - 28 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
mpd72 wrote:
Btw, how does the UK government sponsoring EDF to make loads of money for France reduce UK debt?


Oh it doesn't in the long term it costs a hell of a lot more. The more bit is the profit for EDF and the PRC company.

Essentially it reduces upfront outlays but increases fixed costs. If you ever remember catalogues in the 1980s and 1990s they'd say get this for only £3 a week. Or radio rentals you could rent/buy a TV for £5 a week.

In the end you'd end up with a £200 TV that you had paid £450* for. The key thing is the buyer (government) doesn't have to pony up that £150 in the first place. Yet it would make more sense to put up that £150 up front in the long term.

*£450 is being optimistic btw as today similar rental agreements people buy £250 washing machines for £1200 via rental agreements.

This thing was super common under Gordon Brown. Where you'd get a £20 million hospital and the government would agree to pay £4 million rent + running costs for 20 years. Back of cig packet and you can see they're going to pay £80 million for a £20 million asset.


But think of the ministers! They have an eye on their future careers after they leave office.


The cheapest way to finance it would be simply to print the 30bn like Guernsey did for their infrastructure.
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Suntan Sid
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PostPosted: 22:34 - 28 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
Why are you worrying about a piffling £30bn?

There is a £200bn+ PFI debt mountain which, somehow, manages not to appear on the government books!
PFI, a scheme devised by crooks for the sole benefit of the crooks, but hey ho it's only public money! Rolling Eyes
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Itchy
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PostPosted: 22:37 - 28 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
Suntan Sid wrote:
Why are you worrying about a piffling £30bn?

There is a £200bn+ PFI debt mountain which, somehow, manages not to appear on the government books!
PFI, a scheme devised by crooks for the sole benefit of the crooks, but hey ho it's only public money! Rolling Eyes



Why are you worrying about a piffling 230bn (the above two added). The government has a debt mountain to the tune of 4600bn. The government doesn't have to apply FRS17/FRS102/IAS19. The amount they have to pay out for civil service and public state pensions.
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Suntan Sid
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PostPosted: 22:53 - 28 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
Itchy wrote:
Why are you worrying about a piffling 230bn (the above two added).


I'm not worried, I'm confident the UK is run by crooks whose sole purpose is to transfer public money, into their own bank accounts and into the bank accounts of the people who put the crooks in power.
PFI happens to be the perfect example!
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Lord Percy
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PostPosted: 23:49 - 28 Jul 2016    Post subject: Re: Dodgy government deals Reply with quote
mpd72 wrote:

Why are Gov.plc not investing some of the £30BN they are paying a French company as a bribe, to produce our own energy?

Could state energy not compete or even be cheaper than £30BN bribed EDF?


Shocked

mpd72 putting forward a case for state ownership of a public service.

Today hell froze over.

Well I totally agree that it's a complete joke that we have foreign companies doing this for us. Just like it's a complete joke we have foreign companies doing anything at all that we absolutely should be doing in-house. Telecoms, transport etc. Plenty of this is simply money going out of the country, because apparently globalisation is a good thing. Well it's a good thing if most of the globalising entities are part of your country. Seems the shoe is now on the other foot and we are absolutely not beneficiaries in this massive economic game any more. Time to take a lot of things back in-house.
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JonB
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PostPosted: 07:47 - 29 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
We'd be better off harnessing tidal energy like in the below link. Similar energy output, there were talks that you could build a road on top of it - so the benefits for Somerset and the wider Westcountry would be more profound.

Costs less as well - but the enviroMENTALISTS, in a spasm of hypocrisy are all over it.

https://www.reuk.co.uk/Severn-Barrage-Tidal-Power.htm
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Rogerborg
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PostPosted: 07:53 - 29 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
Itchy wrote:
He pretty much said that there simply weren't enough UK trained engineers to do it.

Plus the pay wasn't as good as in other nations where he could triple or quadruple the pay. So the engineers that were here simply went to get a better deal elsewhere.

I worked briefly in the nuke industry in the 90s and my lingering impression is of dark, dingy, mouldy buildings understaffed with demoralised people who didn't really give a damn beyond covering their own backs.

At that point they were transitioning from bespoke consoles (proper orange-on-black glowy machines that went bing!, did one job, and did it very well for a very long time) to commodity hardware and OSes.

The system I worked on used commodity PC hardware and Windows NT 3.50. At that point, 3.50 still had some kernel resource leaks (fixed in 3.51) that would take it down something like every 49 days. The system (a backup backup rod drop logger) was intended to be shoved in a broom closet and only checked every 6 months.

We certified that our app would run to the lowest acceptable standard: 1 failure every 9 nears. The OS on which it was running was a basket case. We certified that our software would be supported for 25 years, while knowing that the beige box would likely die after 2 or 3 and that Windows NT 3.50 won't run on anything newer than an original Pentium chip.

We knew the system wasn't fit for purpose. They knew it. We both knew that upgrading to 3.51 would at least ameliorate some of the issues. But nobody would sign off on it. 3.50 was specified in the tender, and 3.50 it would be.

At the point where I'd had enough and left, we were wrangling with them over shipping very slightly better hardware than promised, because it simply wasn't possible to buy the specified system new any more.

Perhaps things have got better since then. Given that nothing has melted down, I'd certainly hope so. But the impression I got was of people running out the clock to retirement in a dying industry.
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Lord Percy
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PostPosted: 07:20 - 30 Jul 2016    Post subject: Re: Dodgy government deals Reply with quote
mpd72 wrote:

One service I strongly disagree with privatisation of is water. It's a perfect monopoly and private firms can take the p1ss at will,


Well anything with a fixed infrastructure can be abused by private firms.

There's only one set of railway lines with limited capacity. Only one national power grid. etc.

Fair enough though, you agree at least in part that private firms can be piss-takers rather easily at times.
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Lord Percy
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PostPosted: 07:28 - 30 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
Rogerborg wrote:
the impression I got was of people running out the clock to retirement in a dying industry.


I was under the impression the nuclear industry died because it was seen as fairly arbitrary when it was first set up in the 60s/70s, when people thought oil would last forever.

I think the way things are going means nuclear is almost undoubtedly going to come to the front in due course.
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Itchy
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PostPosted: 07:59 - 30 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
What will annoy you more is that Sizewell and Bradwell nuclear power plants will be 100% designed and funded by the PRC.

The PRC will own 21%* of your electricity generating capacity by 2030.


It's odd how people don't stop and think there is something wrong with this.


*this 21% will rise as existing plants are closed
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Im-a-Ridah
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PostPosted: 08:10 - 30 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
Itchy wrote:
What will annoy you more is that Sizewell and Bradwell nuclear power plants will be 100% designed and funded by the PRC.

The PRC will own 21%* of your electricity generating capacity by 2030.


It's odd how people don't stop and think there is something wrong with this.


*this 21% will rise as existing plants are closed


It's unlikely those will be going ahead now Chinese spy George Osborne has been given the boot.
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Lord Percy
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PostPosted: 08:20 - 30 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
Itchy wrote:


It's odd how people don't stop and think there is something wrong with this.



Well apparently state ownership of essential public services is a terrible idea; apparently the 'free market' is a much better option, even if the market includes state-owned enterprises that belong to other governments.
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Itchy
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PostPosted: 08:51 - 30 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
Im-a-Ridah wrote:


It's unlikely those will be going ahead now Chinese spy George Osborne has been given the boot.



Something has to be built though. Decades of government kicking the can down the road and the near retirement of existing electricity production means something has to be built.

In part this is why EDF has the UK over a barrel because they delayed and dithered meaning they weakened their bargaining position. Blair or even Major ought to have been making these plans way in advance.

Lord Percy wrote:


Well apparently state ownership of essential public services is a terrible idea; apparently the 'free market' is a much better option, even if the market includes state-owned enterprises that belong to other governments.


It is, problem is what free market?
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Rogerborg
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PostPosted: 11:43 - 30 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
Itchy wrote:
Decades of government kicking the can down the road and the near retirement of existing electricity production means something has to be built.

But, but, a kajillion watts of renewable capacity.










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Im-a-Ridah
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PostPosted: 12:22 - 30 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
Itchy wrote:


Something has to be built though. Decades of government kicking the can down the road and the near retirement of existing electricity production means something has to be built.

In part this is why EDF has the UK over a barrel because they delayed and dithered meaning they weakened their bargaining position. Blair or even Major ought to have been making these plans way in advance.


I'm sure something will be built, but clearly Theresa understands that it's highly risky giving any trust to a Chinese.

Personally I think we should just rip off the IP of a Chinese reactor and then deny doing so, just like the Chinese do to everyone else.
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Sload
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PostPosted: 12:44 - 30 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
Im-a-Ridah wrote:
I'm sure something will be built, but clearly Theresa understands that it's highly risky giving any trust to a Chinese


A Chinese person or to the PRC?
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Itchy
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PostPosted: 12:55 - 30 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
Rogerborg wrote:

But, but, a kajillion watts of renewable capacity.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jWAnWRBQOM

+

https://www.theguardian.com/society/series/the-obesity-crisis

Thinking
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Jewlio Rides Again LLB
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PostPosted: 13:20 - 30 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
Jeremy Corbyn has taken over mpd's account Laughing
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Sload
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PostPosted: 13:51 - 30 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
You do know mpd is a dirty lefty don't you? I mean surely you knew Shocked
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Lord Percy
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PostPosted: 14:08 - 30 Jul 2016    Post subject: Reply with quote
Im-a-Ridah wrote:


Personally I think we should just rip off the IP of a Chinese reactor and then deny doing so, just like the Chinese do to everyone else.


I dunno if I'd like the idea of ripping off their designs. Given that China are known for stealing other countries' ideas, it kind of shines a light on how poor their own stuff must currently be..!
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